Rush
by Shade Embry
Summary: During the Nash surveillance, Jack is finally confronted when his friend, CTU's tech expert, breaks her silence.


TITLE: Rush  
  
AUTHOR: Brittany "Thespis" Frederick  
  
E-MAIL: baltimorelt@yahoo.com  
  
RATING: PG for language  
  
CATEGORY: Drama, Missing Scene  
  
SUMMARY: It all went wrong and she wanted to save it for him, but she didn't know how to save it. She would just have to try.  
  
SPOILERS: 4:00-5:00 PM  
  
RECOMMENDED LISTENING: "The Rush Is Loud," God Lives Underwater (for the beginning scenes); "What If," Kate Winslet (for the conclusion)  
  
  
  
All he wanted was to be left alone  
  
After years of footage and miles of tape  
  
They're on their way down to him  
  
And he can't wait to be with them all the time  
  
He abused himself and we abuse ourselves  
  
They were looking for answers to all the hits he sent  
  
They settled on a theory that we all knew  
  
We just hide the fact that we abuse ourselves  
  
It's killing me or all my friends  
  
The rush is loud  
  
"The Rush Is Loud," God Lives Underwater  
  
She dreamt of a beach in Cozumel that lacked the clouds, cold and traffic of Los Angeles, with a bright sun in a warm sky and a decent tide, with a beach chair in a quiet area, her laptop and an attractive British hacker who kept glancing at her. Finally, he just got up and came over, and as she finished putting code into a new hydra, he started to say something ... that ended in the sound of denial as she was woken up, shoved back into the real world where people killed people for no real reason.  
  
She recognized the voice instantly.  
  
"Jack!" Liz yelled even as she sprang up from the hotel bed and raced into the other room where her boss and friend and her co-worker Nina Myers were maintaining the Nash surveillance. Ultimately, she wished she hadn't taken that nap. It had been his idea, but for a long while she would hold it against herself.  
  
"Liz, nice of you to join us," Jack made it a statement and not a negative attack as he immediately started giving orders into the radio. Liz had just enough time to do two things: take a glance at the monitors to see Elizabeth Nash and what she could obviously see coming happen, and draw her weapon and click back the safety. The Ehrlich felt heavier in her hand than it ever had before as Jack shoved back his chair and went storming across the hall, and Liz followed blindly, throwing in with him again, like she'd done every day of her life.  
  
She didn't know why she went in with her gun up, but she did it anyway, her only thought that she almost hadn't brought it at all. As soon as she stepped in the door and remembered that Drazen was the one on the ground, she shoved it back in its holster awkwardly. Her hand was on Jack's shoulder and she looked to him.  
  
"What do you want me to do?"  
  
There was a combination of frustration and fear in his eyes. "Call a med unit," he said, handing her the radio as he started toward Elizabeth Nash. She called it in even as she kept looking at him. She had a feeling this was less about Drazen and more about a few things he hadn't said to her, and it both pissed her off and scared the hell out of her.  
  
She dropped the radio on a nearby endtable and ran to cover Drazen even as Nina grabbed Nash and dragged her back in the other room. Her medical training was standard, the kind of basics given to all agents in their training, but it would do something to keep the terrorist alive until expert help showed up.  
  
Keep the terrorist alive. To Liz the four words were bitter.  
  
She slipped out of her jacket and tried to use it to staunch the bleeding. "Jack, I'm not good at this," she informed her old friend as he rushed over. "None of us are good at this, Liz, you're fine," he said and the back of her mind noted it was the most supportive thing he'd said to her in the last few hours. She felt a need to inform him, "Yeah, well, I don't feel fine."  
  
Liz wasn't sure how long it went on, the two of them trying to keep Andre Drazen from dying too early – again, words that she couldn't believe she was using in connection with a terrorist – without really saying anything more to each other. What was there to say? The med team showed up and shoved them both out of the way, and they stepped back fairly covered in blood. Her pulse was pounding in her ears. She finally looked to him.  
  
"Jack, can I speak to you for a minute?" she said quietly.  
  
He nodded and she lead him out of Drazen's room, away from the room across the hall where the rest of the agents were congregating, until she was sure no one would hear them. Then she looked at him hard for a while, but she couldn't find any answers.  
  
"Liz, are you okay?" he started first.  
  
"What's going on, Jack?" she asked pointedly, ignoring him. "You show up at the office, don't say as much as two words to me before you drag me out here, and I'm fine with that, you know that I trust you, but you've been acting like your temperature dropped to sub-zero and I want you to talk to me. I've always been right here for you and something is wrong and why haven't you told me?"  
  
"You came out here to yell at me for keeping secrets?"  
  
"Yes, I did, and if that sounds petty, that's fine, but since I've been down here I have been worried as hell about you, Jack. I can't think straight, because every time I look at you I'm afraid of what's happening to you, but you won't tell me so I don't know if I need to be afraid or not. And I think I do. That's just my best guess, hell, I've been asleep for the last few minutes, but I think that I do and I really don't want to be." She paused. "Jack, you're important to me, you're the first person in my life who's ever been this close to me, and you're the most important person in my life, period. Please don't shut me out now."  
  
She blinked away mist and calmed her voice as best she could. "Did that make any sense?"  
  
"Yeah, it made a lot of sense," he said quietly, then exhaled. "Liz, I don't want to get you involved in this. Teri, Kim and Nina are already trapped in all of this. I want to keep someone I love out of it."  
  
"I'm already in it, Jack. I was in it the moment you were. And you know that."  
  
"Liz, there's a lot I'm supposed to know that I don't know right now." He gripped her by the shoulders if only to reinforce that he was still holding on to her. "I just need you to stay with me, okay? No matter what happens, just hold on, and I promise, I promise I'll see us through this."  
  
"We're going to see this through together, Jack," she told him as she managed to smile. "You know I'll always be here."  
  
He looked at her for a moment, then embraced her, and Liz took several steady breaths, listening to the sound of his heartbeat. It put everything in perspective. Despite being harried, pressured and beaten down, they were still alive, and they were still together. What she wanted more than anything was to make it better for him. She wanted to freeze time, to be able to end it all and send him home to his family. She was powerless in that sense, and struck with that she found herself crying into his shoulder. She didn't want to be weak and never did, but she couldn't help herself. She would give everything she had to put him back where he was the previous day. And Jack held Liz for a few moments, as long as it took for her to get over the irreversibility of all that had transpired.  
  
Jack studied her face for a moment as she blinked back the last few tears. "I think it's my turn to ask if you're okay," he said quietly and she cracked a smile despite herself. "No, I'm not," she said, "But I will be."  
  
They turned and looked down the hall where everything was clearing out. It was surprisingly quiet.  
  
"Ready to go?" he asked her, looking to her.  
  
She looked to him and their eyes met knowingly. "With you? Always."  
  
"Let's do it," he said, and started forward down the hall back toward the eye of the storm. She put her hand on his shoulder and that stopped him.  
  
"I'll be along in a minute," she said quietly, and he nodded. "I'll be waiting for you," he said, and then she let him go.  
  
Liz watched him go and thought about it all, focused on the back of his head. Mason – well, okay, maybe not Mason, because he liked her, but Chappelle, then – would berate her for pulling a lead operative out of an operation to interrogate him on their social status. But she knew, and Jack knew, that what she had said was a long time coming. Their relationship hadn't changed. Sometimes, they just needed to be reminded. The next time he needed her by his side, she'd rush to it in a heartbeat – and the time after that, and after that as well. She never saw her commitment as having an end. And that was just the way it was supposed to be.  
  
That was her real dream, then, she decided as she started down the hall to where Jack was conferencing with Nina and saw the content glance he shot in her direction. To stay with him, as long as it took; no matter how hard the road, she would see him through.  
  
Here I stand alone with this weight upon my heart  
  
And it will not go away  
  
In my head I keep on looking back, right back to the start  
  
Wondering what it was that made you change  
  
Well, I tried but I had to draw the line  
  
And still this question keeps on spinning in my mind  
  
Many roads to take, some to joy, some to heartache  
  
Anyone can lose their way  
  
And if I said that we could turn it back, right back to the start  
  
Would you take the chance and make the change?  
  
Do you think how it would have been sometimes?  
  
Do you pray that I'd never left your side?  
  
'Cause I still love you more than I can say  
  
What if I had never let you go?  
  
Would you be the man I used to know?  
  
If I'd stayed, if you'd tried, if we could only turn back time  
  
But I guess we'll never know  
  
- Kate Winslet, "What If" 


End file.
